Rasgulla

Rasagulla is a North Indian sweet prepared with fresh curd cheese. If we have soft paneer/chenna in hand it will take 15mins to prepare this sweet. You can find chenna recipe here.

Ingredients:

1. Paneer / curd cheese - 1 lb (prepared with 1/2 gallon whole milk, here is the recipe)
2. Sugar - 2 cups
3. Water - 3 cups
4. All purpose flour - 1 tablespoon
5. Rose Water / Cardamom powder - 1 tsp (for flavoring)

Instructions:

1. Knead the paneer along with flour on a clean surface with hands for 2-3mins.
2. Seperate the dough into equal parts making round balls.
3. Boil sugar and water in a pressure cooker (better to use wide cooker) closing the lid, without keeping the whistle.
4. Once the liquid starts boiling, add the balls to the liquid and cover the lid, cook for 15mins. Make sure there is enough room to rasgullas to cook. Rasgullas become double in size after they are cooked. Add rose water/ cardamom powder to the sugar syrup.
5. Take the rasgullas carefully with a spatula to a bowl and pour the sugar syrup on top of them.
6. Cool at room temperature and refrigirate before serving.

This Rasulla is the main ingredient for preparing the Rasmalais. Cooking these rasgullas in milk, and sugar results the rasmalais. I will try to post the recipe for rasmalais in near future.

Ravva Kesari

Ravva kesari or Sooji ka Halwa is a commonly prepared sweet in Andhra or South India. There is a Sai Baba Temple near our house and every Thursday devotees offer different kinds of food as prasadam. Today, I made this sweet as our offering to God.

Ingredients:

1. Sooji - 1.5 cups
2. Sugar - 3 cups
3. Ghee - 1/4 cup (I held back on ghee, but can add up to 1 cup)
4. Water - as required (min 4 cups)
5. Cardamom seeds (ground) - 1/2 tsp
6. Cashew nuts/Raisins - as required
7. Food color - optional

Instructions:

1. Heat 2 tsps of ghee in a pan and fry the sooji till the raw smell of ravva goes away. Keep this aside.
2. Boil the water and add the fried sooji slowly to the water stirring constantly (to avoid lumps). Cook for 10mins. Add water as required as water gets absorbed by ravva very quickly.
3. Add sugar to the above mix and cook for 5mins. Add ghee slowly to it and cook for another 5-7mins.
4. Heat 1 tsp of ghee in a pan and fry cashew/raisins till brown.
5. Add cardamom powder and cashews to the cooked kesari.
6. Serve hot or at room temperature. To make pieces, cool the kesari completely in a greased flat pan/tray and cut in required shape.
7. It can be refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Carrot Halwa

Carrot Halwa is one of the most commonly served desserts in Indian restaurants/buffets. After reading this recipe from my friend's blog, I thought of sharing my way of making it through this post. This recipe involves pressure cooking the carrots to reduce the preparation time and tastes as good as when the carrots are fried.

Ingredients:

1. Carrots (grated) - 1 cup
2. Milk - 1/3 cup (or till it covers the carrot pulp in cooker)
3. Sugar - as required (typically 1/2 cup or more)
4. Cardamom powder (ground) - 1/2 tsp
5. Cashews & Raisins - as required
6. Ghee - 3 tsps or optional
7. Honey - 2 tsps (serves as a binding agent)

Instructions:

1. Pressure cook grated carrots in milk until they are well cooked.
2. Transfer the contents into a frying pan and fry until milk gets completely absorbed/evaporated.
3. Add sugar, honey and ghee and cook for another 5mins.
4. Mix the cardamom powder, cashews, and raisins.
5. Cool to room temperature and serve.

Sunni Undalu

Minapa Sunni Vundalu/Urad dal laddu is a traditional andhra sweet and is easy to prepare. We can store the urad dal flour and sugar mix in an air tight container for atleast 2 months. And whenever we want to make these, we can just add ghee to the mix and make laddus.

Ingredients:

Urad dal / Black gram lentil (without husk) - 1 cup

Granulated Sugar - 1 cup

Ghee/clarified butter - 1/2 cup or less (I use just enough to make laddu shape)

Instructions:

• Dry roast urad dal on low heat until it turns brown. Keep stirring continuously as urad dal burns quickly.
• Let the dal cool and blend it into a smooth powder.
• Blend the sugar to a fine powder.
• Mix the urad dal flour with sugar powder in a bowl.
• Slowly add ghee and mix with hands until the mix holds together to make a round ball.
• Store these in an air tight container. They will stay fresh for 2 weeks.

Cracked Wheat Kesari

I am going to send this recipe for the JFI event. Thanks to Manjusha for informing me about this contest.

When I heard the main ingredient for this contest was wheat, the first thing came to my mind was this sweet. This is the cracked wheat prasadam served at Annavaram Satyanarayana Swami temple in A.P. And for the first time I am making this since I started cooking 3 years ago. The sweet aroma from this dish reminded me of the times I visited the temple in my childhood.

Ingredients:

Cracked wheat - 1 cup

Water - 2 1/2 cups
Jaggery - 1 cup
Ghee - 3 table spoons (the more you add ghee, the better it tastes)
Cardamoms - 3 no.
Cashews and Raisins - handful (for garnishing)

1. Heat 1 tsp of ghee in a pan and fry cashews and raisins. Set them aside when they turn brown in color.
2. In the same pan add cracked wheat and fry for 5 mins. Set it aside.
3. Add 2 1/2 cups of water to the pan, add jaggery and cardamom. When water starts boiling, add wheat and cook until it is soft.
4. Add the remaining ghee and cook for 1 min.
5. Garnish with cashews and raisins.

Paramannam (Sweet Rice Pudding)

Paramannam or Annam Payasam is a traditional sweet for festivals and poojas in South India. It is a must have for House warming/ Gruha pravesam. We prepared this today morning as prasadam to God on the occasion of Ugadi.




Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup (washed and drained)
Milk - 4 cups
Sugar - 1 cup
Jaggery - 1 chunk (~ 3tsp)
Moong dal - 4no. ( Tradition, mom says don't ever offer plain white rice to God, add some colored dal to it, don't know why ????)
Cardamom (grounded) - 1/2 tsp
Cashew nuts and Raisins - for garnishing
Ghee - 1 tsp
Salt - a pinch

Instructions:

• Wash and soak rice in water for 10 min.s.
• Pour Milk in a bowl and bring it to boil. Add rice to the milk and cook until rice is soft, stir for every 4-5min.s so that rice will not stick to the bottom of the bowl. Cover the pan with lid for fast cooking.
• Add sugar and jaggery to the cooked rice mix and boil for another 5min.s.
• Add salt, which adds a great taste to the dish.
• Heat ghee in a pan and fry cashew nuts and raisins.
• Garnish the nuts and the cardamom powder on top of paramannam.

Maida Biscuits

Ugadi is approaching and relatives are coming for weekend, so thought of making these sweet little treats for the festival. My Mom uses clarified butter for these but I am substituting the recipe with unsalted butter. I love the crispy nature of these biscuits.

This recipe yields 12 medium size cookies or 24 small ones.

Ingredients:

Maida /All-Purpose flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Clarified Butter / Unsalted Butter(melted) - 1/2 cup (or little more)

• Mix Maida and sugar in a food processor for 3min.s.
• Add melted butter slowly to this until the mix forms a tight dough, just enough to make round balls.
• Preheat oven at 325F and grease the cookie sheet with oil and line the sheet with parchment paper.
• Make small rounds with the dough and flatten them like a cookie/biscuit shape. Place these in the cookie sheet with enough gap between the cookies.
• Bake for 15-20 min.s , if the backside of the cookie starts brown in color, remove the tray from oven.

Cool for 5min.s and keep them on a 2-layered tissue paper to absorb the ghee/butter . Store these in an air-tight container for 1 week.

Badusha

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour(Maida) - 2 cups
Plain yoghurt - 1 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup or little less
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Lemon juice - 1/2 tsp
Vanilla essence - few drops
Oil for deep frying
For syrup:-Sugar - 3 cups, water - 1 1/2

• Mix the curd and add 1-2tsp sugar and ghee to make a foaming consistency.
• In a food processor, pour this liquid and add the flour, baking soda and blend for 2 - 3 mins. No need to add water. If needed, add curd.
• Make it into a spongy dough. Make small lemon size balls and roll in between palms hardly and make a thump impression in center.
• Cover with a damp cloth and keep them in the fridge for 20 mins.
• Prepare the syrup of 2 string consistency and keep it warm. Add vanilla essence and lemon juice to the syrup.
• Take the badushas from the fridge and keep in the room temperature for 2 mins.
• Heat oil in a pan and when oil is hot simmer the flame to medium. Let the badushas cook on a low heat to golden brown. (If oil is too hot, badushas will break.)
• Remove from oil and drop them one by one into the syrup.
• Allow the badushas to soak in syrup for 12 -15 mins.